Well another eventful trip up there yesterday they clearly do not want us travelling there, although the Police were not to bad on this occasion in fairness to them despite having a camera pointing at you what ever way you turned, and way to much resource on show for the low numbers of supporters from both sides.

The day started off with a 6 o clock start from the Cardiff City stadium, a quiet run up to Leeds at that time of the morning so hit no snarl ups and managed to get to Woolly Edge Services at the time specified 10.45. There was already a Castell coach when we arrived met by at least a dozen police vans if not more, motor cyclist around a dozen, at a guess I would say there was 2 PSUs there (around 80 Police officers) for the 6 coaches. There was also three or four evidence gathers on show. I had brought the supporters club cam corder with me and my own Hi Vis vest with Supporters Club evidence gatherer on it. So as we pulled in with our three coaches I was filming the evidence gatherers filming me. I got off the coach and was immediately met by Wayne Nash Cardiff City Football Club, and Sergeant Wayne Palmer of the South Wales police who asked me to come and meet the Match Commander. In fairness he was a decent bloke and was not to pleased with Leeds united late decision on Saturday not to sell alcohol to us in the ground, and the late information about flags not being allowed unless they had a kite mark (this seems to be a Yorkshire thing from The Safety advisory Groups up there so we may have the same at Barnsley & Doncaster as I know both Sheffield Clubs now have the same policy) He said the latest we would be moving would be midday but said if he could get us going earlier he would but all 6 coaches needed to moved together but we were still waiting for Gezza bus. Gezza coach arrived around 11.20 and we were finally on our way just after 11.45 for the final 7/8 miles which took 25 minutes under escort.

Upon arriving at the ground again there were Hundreds of officers on duty and plenty of cameras filming us, I continued to film also until I got off the coach and walked to the turnstile. To get to the away end we were escorted around half the stadium across some waste ground and through the home car park and parked up in a compound. Then the home supporters were held back while we were escorted from the compound to the turnstiles until everyone was in. The stewards searched everyone at the turnstiles and the police were busy filming everyone, by this time the camera was in my pocket.

Once inside the stadium I bough a Bovril £2 and 20 programmes at £4 each for the supporters club, the concourse was all carpeted and recently decorated which gave the impression this was a quality stand. However once in the stand the view was pretty poor with pillars and TV gantries in the way similar to the back of the Bob bank wasn’t good at all for £36. I stood at the back but couldn’t see all of the pitch because of obstructions but just got on with it. Just before half time I gezza came up and said about the ejections at the front I must say they had gone unnoticed at the back to me that said I couldn’t see much anyway, these were for standing. I said what about the home fans they appear to be standing either end of the ground, he informed they were not being ejected and were left to stand; I said I would have a word at half time. For the remainder of the half I watched the home end to see if any stewards were either telling the fans to sit down or throwing any one out for standing, I seen neither.

At half time I went to complain on behalf of the lads ejected close on 20 by now to ask for a reason why it was just the away section that was subjected to this. The rules clearly state no standing up and this at the moment there is no argument, but what was occurring in my opinion was discrimination and disparity towards the Cardiff section of the ground, all you want is to be treated equal. I first spoke to our stewards, and then attempted to have a civil conversation with a woman who was in charge of the area on behalf of Leeds United Football Club, quite frankly after 30 seconds I gave up, considering her job is customer facing, she had very poor: people Skills, poor Communication Skills, Poor Vocabulary Range, No Common sense, and no idea of what was occurring. I then had a chat with gezza and said if they chuck one more of our supporters out for standing we will all walk out. So we spread the word around the away supporters, and informed the authorities of our intentions.

5 minutes into the second half another lad got ejected so as agreed I called for everyone to walk out, just under a 100 marched out (91) I counted them later and started off with a demonstration outside the turnstiles but the police asked us to protest in the compound which everyone did peacefully. I was filming but was then approached by a employee of Leeds united FC who got heavy with me filming and was threatening all sorts of action much of which was illegal unbeknown to him, however I did stop as I had already filmed enough footage. The boys then put up a few flags and listen to the game either on the radios on the coaches or watched it on the I pad screens one of the lads had, before the final whistle blew.

We then waited for the home fans to disperse before leaving the ground under Police escort again.

I would like to thank all the supporters who walked out in support of their fellow supporters after half time, well done you made me feel very proud. It was a powerful statement due to the numbers involved nearly a third of the total away support. Of course it would have been better if everyone had walked out by at £36 a ticket I can understand why some of you didn’t. In future the supporters club will think seriously about running coaches to this fixture. There is always something, last season it was the police, this season Leeds united Football Club, It will obviously need to be discussed with our members but its not worth the hassle in my opinion. Leeds United Football Club intentionally or unintentionally appear to be making it as difficult, or awkward as possible for us to attend this fixture, almost as if they don’t want us to come. Perhaps everyone may boycott it in the future, and then they will see what it is like not to have any away fans at the ground. No atmosphere, lower attendance, and not in the spirit of football.

Many Thanks again for your support I will not leave it here I will push for some enquiry into yesterday events, and there was also some allegations of racial abuse towards our supporters from some of the home stewards, please can you come forward if you were on the receiving end or witness to any of such abuse.

Well done Vince, keep the good work up. I was one supporter who boycotted this fixture and was hoping the Cardiff City would refuse to take up offer of tickets for this fixture or the supporters club and other fans boycott this game. How long will these crap situations go on for us supporters. Was £36 a ticket to pay the police bill? Hopefully you have loads of mistreatment of our fans on your camera and try and take this situation further.

Vince a well written and thought out article. What can our Club do. TBH i would like to see the same treatment of there supporters or even a total ban on them. Leeds United are a horrible Club and are well worth the most hated in the football league. Much worse than Luton and Millwall IMO. And are fast becoming more hated than the Jacks who also hate them as well.As for the PC brigade in this Country it is a joke and no laughing matter. The kite mark is there for a reason and to make sure that goods are safe especially electrical goods and for that i am Glad. But a Kite mark for Flags the only thing i can think off is they must be fire retardant. But its a flag FFS. As far as i am concerned a flag has never injured any one or even killed anyone at a football match. Any way to sum up Leeds United = the most disgusting club ever.Oh and please sign on my facebook page to that effect

well done to the guys who walked out and stood up for their principles but these people(police and stewards) do not care about the spirit of the game and would probably consider it a result if clubs totally boycotted elland road and would give themselves a slap on the back,leeds utd still have a huge international following and revenue from merchandise and that would probably cover the loss of ticket sales for a few hundred away fans plus of course what they would save on policing i went to the game and after a heated debate with the woman vince mentioned who yes was a total disgrace decided to sit down and support the team as id spent a lot to see the match.i can totally see why people chose to walk out or boycott altogether though.

Had a nice not so friendly chat with the female supervisor who was waiting outside afterwards,she was last seen scurrying back under the rock she had crawled out from yet again threatening to get the police

the city fans who were threatened by this shameful woman and her lackeys behaved impeccably i might add

It was a rotten day yesterday and it was all down to Leeds Football Club

However I hope we dont treat their fans the same as their club treated us. They are just football fans like us and have minimal influence on how their club treat away fans.They are being charged heavily for tickets,are voting with their feet and I have never seen Elland Rd so quite. It was playing Reading away.

I was talking to a couple of coppers at half time and they were saying the stewards were only trying to get the kids at the front to sit down and all they needed to do was move further back because some of our fans wanted to sit. That may of been true, and those lads perhaps should of gone back, but there was plenty of spaces for those who wanted to sit anyway.

The most frustrating point was that the stewards would randomly pick on people for standing throughout the crowd not just at the front, but strangely only randomly picked on lads under 20.The stewards were very quick to haul them out and I saw one lad getting thrown out for saying 'what about them (pointing at Leeds), what about them.'I stood the whole game and not once was I asked to sit down. They would walk past or around me to shout at kids.

I only saw a couple of stewards in the stand to our right asking people to sit down and that was only in the first few minutes of the game. I stayed in Leeds last night(thats where my missus is from) and I met a pile of lads in the pub who stand in the Kop. They are not asked to sit at all, much like in the Canton I guess.

They also said that Ipswich charged them £38 last month which is dreadful.

I now realise we should of probably boycotted and I put my hands up to say I shouldnt of gone.

Football is eating itself. If it aint careful it will be an armchair sport with soulless empty stadiums. This game time and date chosen for the armchair -not the fans of both sides. Forcing City fans to travel hundreds of miles from the crack of dawn just to be denied basic freedom and choice. Thos who went -herded for hours on their precious day off and being charged a small fortune for the privilege!Its disgusting. Is this what they are trying to market nowadays for football??? Commercial this, money that, family day out -bollox.

They're taking the piss.

Why do they think only 300 went - its because we have been there and were treated exactly the same. Its another in a list of away games that most city fans don't pencil in due to the hassle and indignant nature of paying to be treated like rats.

I used to think it was a racist thing against us but it is more than this. We are being ripped off and SKY/PREMIER LEAGUE is adding to this by unlimited TV football as an alternative for customers.

In what other arena would a customer be treated like this? The UCI or Odeon would go bust if you had this crap to watch a film. The Egg would too. I'm told U can't watch a Blues game without people in front of u up and down going to the bar when the game is on!

Portsmouth had crap in Leeds. Leeds are lucky their doing well -because the combination of the infamous yorkshire police and ken bates will kill that atmosphere and stop their own fans going too.

Well done to those that went but I do wish that us fans and perhaps our club boycotted the game! It was a good time to do it considering the match was on sky and would have got the publicity it deserved! No mention on Sky at all about the high prices but I guarantee there would have been had no fans turned up!

Assuming we are in the same division and prices remain as high then I urge city fans to unite and boycott!

Years ago an away game at Leeds would excite all of us but now I am more inclined to go to a smaller club such as Peterborough where you know you will have no shit and aggro from police or stewards!

My opinion is that we should all travel up next year ( if we play them ) and just go to the city centre in the pubs not bother going to game, the police an leeds would hate this with hundreds possibly thousands of Cardiff in there city centre, same with everyteam who wants to treat us like shit

I went last season and again yesterday but going to give this fixture a miss in future. Not worth the hassle. I was impressed with the walkout,thought it showed a great spirit of solidarity. Didn't walk out myself though as had to get train back to Scotland and didn't fancy being stuck in coach park.

We rise above it! At the end of the day it's not the Fans fault! I wouldn't spoil someone else's day out. The club should have just handed the tickets back at the start, which hopefully the will do next season!! I don't think we should lower ourselves as a club, I'm more happier when lots of away fans come down as it creates the atmosphere and lifts the home fans at the same time....

In the first half all you could hear was the City Fans and i am sure it helped the Lads. In the second half i didn't hear our supporters once and we played shit !! Coincidence ? But perhaps that is what the Leeds scum want because they haven't beaten us in 30 years.It isn't fair treating there supporters in the same way but its the only way to put a message out. Ban there supporters and put out a statement explaining why. And if its OK to give there team the advantage by doing that us then to even it out we do the same to them.I Hate Leeds with a passion

i agree with the above post,as admirable as the show of solidarity was when our fans walked out im afraid little will be done because of the small numbers that travelled up there.Leeds demand like 50 000 tickets for their precious fans for every away game so to impose the same restrictions and seating arrangements would cause uproar and force bates and his cronies to act.

ive heard blackpool hae tiotally boycotted for the next game at elland road,anyone know if this is true

Went to the game yesterday and it was just a sick joke. Leeds are a club living on their past so called glories, thinking MAN UTD are their rivals is fantasy,more like BRADFORD . They were a total disgrace in their attitude towards us.God help us if we meet in the Playoffs .

to all those who yesterday parted with alot of cash to make the trip and stood united as fans for leaving together...

Leeds utd are a complete joke... attending a football match is supposed to be sports entertainment, but from reading what you said i cant see entertainment falling into the day anywhere except maybe for the conversation with the women so called incharge!! may as well have had a day out on the megabus...

in future i agree that a full boycott of leeds utd should be adheared to by the club and us the fans... 20k attendance yesterday for a so called big club somes up what many fans now feel about the leeds utd situation..

The ticket prices are the same for you as we endure. Leeds fans who were in the same stand as Cardiff fans will have had to pay £1 more than you and wouldn't have been entitled to concessions, i.e. any kid sat in that stand would have had to pay the adult price of £36 plus £1 booking. Tickets behind the goal are the 'cheap' ones and would have cost £33. Away fans have been moved from behind the goals to the West Stand down the side, I have no idea why. The prices weren't anti-Cardiff so much as they are, broadly speaking, sick. Portsmouth fans had to pay the same and so will 90% of visiting clubs as 90% of our home games are Cat A (a pricing category moreso than a holigan risk category)

You're lucky that Cardiff do a season ticket for under £350. At Leeds it would cost me a minimum of £612. You do a kid's season ticket for under £50, at Leeds it's £240. The prices on Sunday weren't artificially inflated because we were playing Cardiff, our prices are just a means of control imposed on us by a very sick man, Ken Bates. Now I understand that you lot are sickened by your one visit a year to Elland Road, how do you think it is for us?

Regarding standing, Leeds fans are routinely ejected from Elland Road for standing. Nobody is turning a blind eye to Leeds fans standing and stewards regularly sweep certain areas of certain stands and threaten to impose a 3yr ban on those standing, especially if they're kids

I agree you should have boycotted the game, Millwall did a few years ago because of prices and travel restrictions. It's rare we get a decent crowd at Elland Road anymore and when Bates first got the chance to jack up prices our home crowds dropped to 16,000 whilst we were getting 10,000 applications for away games. And you have to pay £40 a season just to be able to join in the away ticket raffle. As I say, it's sick, but at least it's just once a year for you lot.

Anyway, I always used to have a soft spot for Cardiff after I saw you lot going absolutely batshit on the terraces on Football Focus when you scored a pretty meaningless goal against Standard Liege, but I'll not wish you luck

lowfields76 wrote:I'm a Leeds fan and would like to add a couple of things.

The ticket prices are the same for you as we endure. Leeds fans who were in the same stand as Cardiff fans will have had to pay £1 more than you and wouldn't have been entitled to concessions, i.e. any kid sat in that stand would have had to pay the adult price of £36 plus £1 booking. Tickets behind the goal are the 'cheap' ones and would have cost £33. Away fans have been moved from behind the goals to the West Stand down the side, I have no idea why. The prices weren't anti-Cardiff so much as they are, broadly speaking, sick. Portsmouth fans had to pay the same and so will 90% of visiting clubs as 90% of our home games are Cat A (a pricing category moreso than a holigan risk category)

You're lucky that Cardiff do a season ticket for under £350. At Leeds it would cost me a minimum of £612. You do a kid's season ticket for under £50, at Leeds it's £240. The prices on Sunday weren't artificially inflated because we were playing Cardiff, our prices are just a means of control imposed on us by a very sick man, Ken Bates. Now I understand that you lot are sickened by your one visit a year to Elland Road, how do you think it is for us?

Regarding standing, Leeds fans are routinely ejected from Elland Road for standing. Nobody is turning a blind eye to Leeds fans standing and stewards regularly sweep certain areas of certain stands and threaten to impose a 3yr ban on those standing, especially if they're kids

I agree you should have boycotted the game, Millwall did a few years ago because of prices and travel restrictions. It's rare we get a decent crowd at Elland Road anymore and when Bates first got the chance to jack up prices our home crowds dropped to 16,000 whilst we were getting 10,000 applications for away games. And you have to pay £40 a season just to be able to join in the away ticket raffle. As I say, it's sick, but at least it's just once a year for you lot.

Anyway, I always used to have a soft spot for Cardiff after I saw you lot going absolutely batshit on the terraces on Football Focus when you scored a pretty meaningless goal against Standard Liege, but I'll not wish you luck

as a matter of interest what were your ticket prices for the last 2 previous seasons on average...

Vince,Perhaps a way forward is to have tkts for the fixture but only members of the Board take up the offer. In that way:(1) the Board can see at first hand how appallingly we fans are treated and(2) Leeds will have the privilege of paying for their two PSU's for half a dozen fans.

Matchday prices have gone up a quid or so. Season tickets about 10%. As a rule we've been between the 4th and 6th most expensive team in England (and Wales) to follow since 04-05, which was the first great Bates price hike and which cost us 10,000 season ticket holders, including me

If you look at our average gates since Bates took over 21-22k is about average.

lowfields76 wrote:Matchday prices have gone up a quid or so. Season tickets about 10%. As a rule we've been between the 4th and 6th most expensive team in England (and Wales) to follow since 04-05, which was the first great Bates price hike and which cost us 10,000 season ticket holders, including me

If you look at our average gates since Bates took over 21-22k is about average.

Welcome to the forum, Great post from you earlier. I was at the Liege game and your right you would have think we won the cup winners cup . Its sad to see what Bates is doing to Leeds and having endured the nonsense with Ridsdale in recent years as indeed you guys have its annoying to these people destroying the clubs we love. Im sure sensible ticket prices and we will see Elland road rocking again you have the fanbase and passion its sadly these measures are making fans stay away. Best regards,

lowfields76 wrote:Matchday prices have gone up a quid or so. Season tickets about 10%. As a rule we've been between the 4th and 6th most expensive team in England (and Wales) to follow since 04-05, which was the first great Bates price hike and which cost us 10,000 season ticket holders, including me

If you look at our average gates since Bates took over 21-22k is about average.

i find that shocking that the attendaces have dropped that much surely selling 35k + tickets at £24 quid is better than 15-20k at the inflated price... plus with more people in the grounds , more cash will be spent on merhcandise , food and drink etc... plus a full house also makes for a more enjoyable atmosphere...

Cefnfforestbluebird wrote:Welcome to the forum, Great post from you earlier. I was at the Liege game and your right you would have think we won the cup winners cup . Its sad to see what Bates is doing to Leeds and having endured the nonsense with Ridsdale in recent years as indeed you guys have its annoying to these people destroying the clubs we love. Im sure sensible ticket prices and we will see Elland road rocking again you have the fanbase and passion its sadly these measures are making fans stay away. Best regards,

Cheers mate. I just wanted to point out that it isn't just Cardiff fans who are treated like shit and ripped off by my club, we are too!

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